Sid Wood (footballer)

Shortly after arriving in Paris, his older brother Jack, together with other football pioneers in the city, mostly made up of a curious group of upper-middle-class Anglo-British, such as William Sleator, Walter Hewson, and Robert MacQueen, formed the White Rovers Football Club in a meeting at the Café Français on rue Pasquier in Paris, where they voted narrowly to play association football rather than rugby union rules, thus founding one of the first football club in Paris.^[1][2][3] Sid, who was either already in Paris or arrived with or soon after Jack, was one of the club's first players; however, several sources state that the name of Jack's brother was Tom;^[1][2][3] the result of a mistake that peristed through time, probably from a confusion with Robert MacQueen, who was the one with a brother named Thomas, who died during the First World War in 1917.^[1]

The White Rovers joined the USFSA in March 1894, and on 15 April of the same year, the club defeated CA Neuilly 13–0 in the quarter-finals of the inaugural USFSA championship, in which Sid Wood served as a linesman.^[4] Among his Rovers teammates in 1894, there were Ernest Cotton, Emile Cox, MacQueen, and his brother Jack, who was named team captain in October 1894.^[1] In July 1895, Sid Wood helped Rovers to a 2–1 win over Standard AC.^[5]

At some point in either 1896 or 1897, Sid Wood left Rovers to join Club Français, and likewise, on 26 December 1897, he started as a defender in the very first football match in the history of the Parc des Princes, which was refereed by his brother Jack as Club Français was defeated 1–3 by the English Ramblers.^[6] A few months later, on 28 March 1898, he started for Club Français in the 1898 Coupe Manier final at the Vélodrome de Vincennes, helping his side to keep a clean-sheet in a 10–0 win over Paris Star.^[7] In the following week, on 3 April, he started in the final of the 1898 USFSA Football Championship against Standard AC at Courbevoie, which ended in a 2–3 loss.^[8]

A few months later, on 13 December 1898, the Woods (Jack and Sid) were among the five players from Club Français who featured in a selection of the best Parisian players in a friendly match against a German national selection in front of 200 people; Paris lost 1–2.^[9]

Club Français

• USFSA Football Championship:
  • Runner-up (1): 1898
• Coupe Manier:
  • Champions (1): 1898